Foundation devoting grants to diversity, inclusion projects

Social justice campaigns, like Black Lives Matter, have resonated with a group of mostly well-off White people in Oceanside.

Oceanside Charitable Foundation has announced that, in response to issues being brought up across the country, it is devoting its grants this year to helping ease the conflict.

Since its founding in 2009, the foundation has distributed $654,000 to local nonprofits and built a $430,000 permanent endowment.

This year, Marva Bledsoe, grants chairman, announced the foundation will concentrate on “innovative projects that support and promote diversity and inclusion in grades five through 10.” She said that focus “was selected because of issues in the community.”

Bledsoe was speaking at the foundation’s recent “virtual” fall mixer.

The mixer included a new three-minute video by Chris Ryan of Ryan Video Productions telling the story of Oceanside and the foundation.

Its roster of more than 60 active members includes many top community leaders.

At the mixer, recorded and available on the foundation website, Vince Alessi, board chairman, reported that 58,000 individuals have been helped since 2009 and 50 grants have been made.

“OCF is all about giving back to the community,” Alessi said. “Everyone wants a legacy. This is such a great way to do it.”

Last year, Bledsoe reported, the most money to date was awarded — $84,500 to such agencies as the Women’s Resource Center, Words Alive, Voices of Children, North County Lifeline, Serving Seniors, the Boys and Girls Club and Miracosta College Foundation.

On the recording, Marina Araiza, executive director of the Women’s Resource Center, a position Bledsoe held for four decades, said it had provided 750,000 nights of safe haven for victims of domestic violence.

Membership in the foundation requires a $1,000 annual pledge, but Amber Newman, co-chairman of membership, said it can be paid monthly — $83.33 a month.

Discussion on WWII internment

Also dealing with the subject of a diverse community, Oceanside Public Library recently cosponsored with the Japanese American Historical Society San Diego an online panel discussion about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II featuring longtime Carlsbad resident Jack Kubota.

American-born Kubota was 13 when his family was uprooted from its home in the Imperial Valley and sent to a camp at Poston, Ariz.

Kubota, 91, and still working as a professional engineer, told of how each person was allowed to take only one suitcase but his mother defiantly also managed to hold on to her sewing machine, even bringing it back when the family eventually resettled in San Diego.

Also participating in the panel, part of a countywide “One Book One San Diego” library program prompted by the book “They Called Us Enemy” by former “Star Trek” star George Takei, were Linda Canada, archivist for the historical society, and Kay Oshii, an activist who helped get eventual reparations for the U.S. citizens so interned.

Panel discussion on virus

Three other foundations — Leichtag, Rancho Santa Fe and Coastal Community — put on a panel discussion of a different sort this past Tuesday.

Presented by Leichtag’s The Hive, this panel focused on the coronavirus’ effect on the community over the past six months and featured Leichtag’s Sharyn Goodson as moderator and panelists Javier Guerrero from Leichtag’s Coastal Roots Farm,

Samantha Holt from the Armed Forces YMCA on Camp Pendleton, Nicole Mione-green from Casa de Amparo in San Marcos and Max Disposti from North County LGBTQ Center.

Guerrero said families, some living in their cars, appreciated the fresh food furnished by the farm but at first it lost volunteers to grow the food.

Holt said lower-rank military families, especially, were hurting from unemployment because often they had to contend with the high cost of Southern California living while at the same time losing one spouse’s income due to unemployment. She said that the number of families served jumped from 200 to 350.

Mione-green said that many youths lack the skills needed to manage new technology, and Disposti told of added stress and mental-health needs of LGBT youths, in particular.